More From DDay Ohio 2025

My friend Francois falls in with us as a medic, but does not do the landings. The good part of that is he does a wonderful job taking pictures and he was also a great partner in volunteering to cook with me for the section. These pictures are all from Francois's camera. He also took some very nice short videos that I need to download and post as well. 

Ready to go and liberate France! 

After the landing, reorganizing for a safety check and the march back to camp

Mick and Francois sharing a beverage

Bayonet practice. Yes, sometimes, we really do practice stuff and things...

Saturday night, le souper was tinned corned beef and cabbage. Pretty good if I do say so myself. 

I'll try to get more pictures sorted and put up soon. I'd like to get some of Francois' videos up as well, since he's got a couple of dandy shots of Mick piping us to and from the landing. 

More anon. 

I Have Been To....DDay Ohio 2025

The lack of activity on the blog is not due to a lack of hobby related bits and bobs, but rather about the time and space to capture them. This morning I returned from a few days in Conneaut, Ohio, where the largest reenactment of DDay (Operation Overlord) is held annually. I've been a frequent participant since, I think, 2014 or so. It's an amazing collection of people, completely run and organized and funded by volunteers and donations. 

In a word, it's just amazing. 

As a member of the Commonwealth Company, I represent both Royal Canadian Army Service Corps and Regiment de la Chaudiere for this event. My RCASC impression is pretty static, but the Chauds get to go on the landing craft and hit the beach. 

Just a few photos until I get the rest sorted out and posted. 

Well, it IS the NE corner of Ohio, after all...

Saturday's landing was from a DUKW instead of the LCVP. One of the crew was kind enough to take my picture on my phone. My section of the Chauds landed with some of No. 4 Commando. 

A Soldier's eye view. Waiting behind a berm for the Commandos to give us smoke and covering fire to cross a gap between the dunes so we may link up with the other Canadians landing on the beach.

Mes amis, (L to R) Constant, Xavier, Eve, Daniel, et Joffre

(Francois and I are taking the pictures...)

As always, it was a great event. I couldn't see everything or talk to everyone, per the usual. We had great weather for the event, a little too warm during the day, but quite nice at night. 

I'll post more pictures, but I need to Rest & Recover. My kit needs sorting out, my body is quite sore, especially my right knee and my feet, but otherwise, what a great time. Already planning for next year. 

More anon. 

Birthday Post

Well, I've got just enough time left in today before Lights Out to mention what has or has not been going on here in the Duchy. 

Most important, to me anyway, is my completion of my 56th trip around Sol Prime. This was achieved by doing what a Service friend suggested to me many moons ago as a young Soldier...."don't die...". 

Right. Sage advice. 

On other fronts, work has been busy, graduate school has been just a little bonkers, and yet one more weekend in uniform looms.... I jokingly refer to this as "playing 1800mm Moderns".

What else? 

Bought from TMP

I have a completely irrational interest in the Franco-Prussian War, as it was a game in this period that brought me back into the hobby. I was in college and a friend and I went to a local wargame show, HAVOC, on a whim. A gentleman, the late Jim Parcella, was running a FPW game with his Falcon Miniatures and a set of rules called "They Died For Glory". 

Fast forward some decades and a fella had a job lot he was selling for a friend. Painted French! I now have all the French artillery I need, plus a good chunk of (somewhat badly) painted infantry and sufficient mounted officers that I am in the process of rebasing them. And I have plenty of unpainted figures to go with them. 

White Army troops from the Russian Civil War

Another knock on the head from The Good Idea Fairy a year ago was the RCW in 1/72nd scale plastics. I figured I use The Portable Wargame or something like that. One batch of 24 figures is based and this lot will get based in the next week or so. I've another four to six similar groups in the process of being cleaned, glues, primed, etc. 

And finally, my new bestest friend, an Art de la Guerre army starting to form. In this case, Italian Condotta. Why? Because they are rubbish. And I do loves me some rubbish armies. 

With my purchase of the ADLG rules, I dragged out of...somewhere...an old DBA Italian Condotta army and now I have a nice start. If I can find another DBA pack to match it, I'll be able to field the requisite 200pts of vanilla flavoured wandering mercenaries for hire on the Italian peninsula. Perhaps and early version of my Duchy of Arancia project for the Napoleonic Wars. 

Well, that's it then. Too many projects. Too little time. 

More anon. 

For and By A Friend

One of the great games at OttoCon was a homemade set of rules for the Wars of the Roses. The figures, as well, were converted from various Dollar Store figures by my friend Eric Ackermann. Eric does lots of great artistic work on figures. Last year he created two Barsoom armies for a HoTT game set on Mars. 

But enough. Here are some pictures of his work for the War of the Roses. 

One of the things I really enjoy about the hobby, is the opportunity to show off modelling skills and Eric has certainly demonstrated some amazing hobby chops here. 

Folks who say they "can't" in the hobby should take a moment and try to flip that into "can" and maybe they might find a fun group to have a giggle and a good time. 

Weekend Update - OttoCon 2025 is in The Books

This past weekend was OttoCon 2025, the Society of Daisy's annual show. For the last several years, we've held it at the Comfort Suites in Carlisle, PA. 

Attendance was reasonable. We made the number required to pay off the venue. We had several good games and Walt Leach ran an ADLG tournament. We don't have vendors or a flea market, but I think that's going to change for next year. 

 

Keith Wyttenbach ran a big Battle of Navarino Bay from 1827 using "Form On The Admiral's Wake"

Gunfighter Royale was played several times and was one of the most hysterical games I've ever played

Eric Ackermann lent his creative genius to convert Dollar Store figures into War of the Roses miniatures for the Battle of Mortimer's Cross

Paul Kaster ran a playtest of the Battle of Maida with Napoleonic LEGOs 

(I played in this game and it was fun)

Phil Jones put a thousand ECW figures on the table and ran the Battle of Edgehill

Marvin the Martian made his 2.0 AQMF appearance

A game of JUNTA where Tracy was a River Unto His People... 

Finally, Tim, Josh, and Jim ran a "Save the Montcalm" game, set in Tonkin in 1882

Overall, it was a good show. I do appreciate everyone's effort, GMs, players, and Road Crew. Can't wait for next year. 

Letting the Cat out of the Bag...and a Weekend Update

Well, I'm almost completely finished with a project. 

I know. Shocking. But what project could that be? 

Time to let the cat out of the bag....

Okay, maybe not THIS cat, but Miss Fiddles is just oozing cuteness, so I couldn't resist

How about this cat instead? HMS Leopard from the Cod Wars

My friend Willz served aboard her during the Cod Wars as a young matelot, before going to epic career in bouncing HM's submarines off underwater objects and as a junior PO, planning and executing a pre-deployment party for the ratings that landed some in hospital unfit for the trip. 

Anyway, I wanted to paint up a model of his ship. Sadly the stern is all wrong, but it was printed up at work on a new 3D printer the IT boys just got and wanted to run some test prints on. They were more than happy to oblige. The STL files came from Decapod on Thingyverse. 

But being the Cod Wars pitting trawlers against the Icelandic version of the Garda Costas, I needed a way to represent the trawl portion of the fishing vessel. Numerous searches and such later, I came up with these...

I snipped the heads of pins off and glued them to bits of wood, the same paint stirring battens I used for the ships' bases. A bit of paint and a coating of glossy Mod Podge and Bob's your uncle. 

Trawl stands in action. Side trawler on the left, stern trawler on the right. 

Where I grew up, we used to call stern trawlers "draggers", due to the way the trawls were hauled through the water and a couple of college classmates of mine were working on them during college breaks and such. 

Anyway, I've got three trawl markers and another three in the work queue. The last of the vessels, HMS Gurkha, HMS Exmouth, and HMS Scylla are finished and just need to have their bases painted and the Mod Podge applied. 

The completed fleets, less the three RN warships and the three trawl markers mentioned above. 

I am looking forward to maybe doing a trial run of David Manley's fine rules "Cod Wars" at OttoCon. This will be one of the "reserve" games to play if we need an extra game. And if not, well, I'll be playing it when we get back from Carlisle. 

"There's something wrong with out bloody fish today!" 

OttoCon 2025

 

Coming soon!!!

Very soon. As in, next weekend soon...

Next weekend will be the Society of Daisy's now mostly annual convention, known as OttoCon.

 

Originally, it was called "The Weekend". When Otto Schmidt, our Grand Poohbah, began the show, it was designed as a big game day like you would have at a friend's house. It expanded to two days and we started to include things like a "bring and buy" and the infamous Munchie Pit, which are snacks and beverages provided by the attendees. 

We don't have any vendors, like most shows, because we always felt kind of sorry for the poor vendors that had to watch people rush off to games whilst they had to man their booths. 

And Otto deliberately kept everything low tech and low maintenance, because we are lazy administrators at heart. No Book of Faces, No websites. No Social Media presence, except for numpties like me who'd wax and whinge about things on our blogs or forums or whatever. 

Anyway, our "theme", which no one ever pays attention to, is Naval Gaming, which I do enjoy. 

I am pretty much the entire Volunteer Staff. I help take in the receipts, set up tables, move things around, and generally help Tracy, our Grand Poobah since Otto's passing. In fact, it was Tracy who recommended we re-name The Weekend after Otto. Otto probably would have stomped his feet and wagged his finger against it. But he's dead. So he didn't get a vote. 

So next weekend, I'll probably do a post from OttoCon. A fun, quirky show for some fun quirky gamers. Some miniatures, some board games, and of course....Military Science Theatre 2000.